In 2004 after Micheil Saakashvili became the president of Georgia the heads of all the defence and law enforcement agencies were fired. Traffic police became one of the main aims of the reformators. New president presens an ultimatum – if after two days the bribery doesn’t stop – all the police officers are going to be fired, too. And what came out of it?

Every policeman who was seen to take 50-dollar bribe was sent to jail for 10 years. For the first day of the new law about 15 000 policemen lost their jobs. After next few weeks – again 15 000.

About 3 months Georgia lived without traffic police.

The new young policemen were trained and the road police staff was renewed for 85%. New fast cars were bought for the new generation of police.

One of the new police departments. Their main destinctive feature – full transparence so that people may see what’s going on inside.

The other aspect of raising the quality of new police was implemented by increasing the salaries. In comparison to 2004 the salary of a policeman is now 23 times higher.

As most of the old heads were fired, the new young policemen didn’t feel the pressure of the old corrupted police model.

If earlier a young man who wanted to be a policeman needed to give a bribe to become one, now there is 4-stage recruitment system consisting of numerous tests.

Apart from watching over the traffic police officers have to react to every other crime like theft or fight. The patrols are placed so that a car can get to any place within 3 minutes. If a car is occupied a neighboring one will help. There are no more old standards like “It’s not my district”. For such words one can be easily fired now.

Yes! There needs to be more posts about Georgia. We all know of the special love/hate relationship between Georgia and Russia. And dig those pretty Georgian girls. I’ll take a Tbilisi, Georgian girl over an Atlanta, Georgian girl any day.

Yes, that is why the police cars are Skodas and Volvos while the Russians have been using Ford Crown Victorias for a few years now (not that Ford doesn’t have an infamous history with the USSR dating back to the early 1930’s). I have no doubt that the US has given them foreign aide like we have many other countries throughout the years. However, I think that has nothing to do with the motivations of the Saakashvili government to reform the formerly corrupt police department.

I would question the assertion that their pay increased by 23x it’s previous rate. It may have done so in terms of the total amount of currency received but as it is doubtful the Georgian currency is backed by anything of real value, it is more likely that high inflation has pushed it there to maintain value. Don’t worry though: The US will soon join them on the inflation train as out Dollar has little left to recommend it to the world’s investors now that the current administration has added 40% more debt to the balance sheet in only 2 years.

Too bad Georgia is one of the poorest countries in Europe and their people starve. These photos are very different from the real georgia, were they taken in a studio or something? It really is like a huge ghetto.
The new police HQ is nice though, thanks to the US for funding it. Georgia is basically a US owned country at the moment.

Most believe the news. Russia and Georgia are very close countries with a common history, despite the war. Ordinary people living there just as bad as some in Russia. This is the Georgian president is doing everything that his country was like a European country.

Yes it takes more than smart uniforms and glass police stations to make a force respected and clean, but it’s a good start.

If Medevedev and Putin cared as much about corruption in the Russian police they would do similar, however corruption is now institutionalised and those who would manage the corrupt police would be on the list of those to be fired themselves.

Puts Russian police to shame. They are often seen as corrupt, untidy, quick to violence and unwilling to help. What a shame. Let’s hope they change their image in the future.

Wait a minute… They went without police for three months, and everything was perfectly fine… So … they decided to spend obscene amounts of money on a new police force? Are we missing the elephant in the room who’s taking a massive dump on August Vollmer’s grave?

Interesting, they redesigned their police uniforms as well, and seemed to have consciously copied American police uniforms. The navy blue shirt and cap, the grey pants with the stripe – they look like State Troopers. Only the peaked cap is slightly Russian in style, and the only thing Euro about it is the rank insignia.